More than 152 million video rental transactions were made by businesses in the video hire industry during 1999-2000, according to a new report released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

These video rentals represented an average of eight transactions per person. In comparison, each Australian attended the cinema 4.1 times on average during the same period.

The video hire transactions comprised 67 million new release videos rented at an average price of $4.60 each and 85 million other videos rented at $1.60 each. In addition, there were 1.2 million DVD rental transactions (at $4.60 each) and 7.6 million video game rentals (at $5 each).At the end of June 2000, there were 1,166 businesses operating in the video hire industry. These businesses operated from 1,615 outlets, with 1,228 in capital cities and 387 in country areas.

The total income for these businesses during 1999-2000 was $595 million, of which income from the rental of videos ($444 million) was the main source and represented 75% of industry income. Expenses totalled $559 million. The four major expense items were labour costs of $129 million (23% of total expenses), purchase of goods of $128 million (23% of total expenses), depreciation and amortisation of $103 million (19% of total expenses) and rent, leasing and hiring expenses of $94 million (17% of total expenses).

Businesses in the industry recorded an operating profit before tax of $42 million, which represented an operating profit margin of 7.2%. They employed 11,034 people, 61% of whom were females. There was a high incidence of casual employees (66%) in the industry and this was reflected in the average labour costs per employee of $12,500.

Details are in Video Hire Industry, Australia, 1999-00 (cat. no. 8562.0) available fromABS Bookshops. The main features of the publication are available on this site. If you wish to purchase a copy of this publication, contact the ABS bookshop in your capital city